IDP Event
Loyola Honors Indigenous Peoples’ Day
On October 11, Loyola University Chicago and its School of Environmental Sustainability hosted an event to honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day and unveil new signage displaying the university’s Land Acknowledgement Statement. Nearly 90 people gathered to hear from a panel of local Indigenous leaders and view the signs, which feature illustrations by Native American artist Buffalo Gouge.
Signage displaying the Land Acknowledgement Statement features illustrations by artist Buffalo Gouge.
The unveiling was the culmination of a process that started five years earlier when a group of faculty, students, and staff convened to discuss what Loyola can do to welcome and support Indigenous people—a population that remains underrepresented in higher education. Michael Schuck, PhD, a professor in the Theology Department and the School of Environmental Sustainability (SES), led these efforts. The group consulted with local Indigenous leaders, historians, students of Indigenous ancestry, and others, and together, they crafted the Land Acknowledgement Statement and a set of recommended actions. The university ratified the Land Acknowledgement Statement in 2020. This year, every school across the university contributed funds to commission artwork for the Land Acknowledgement Statement signs, produce the signs, and host the October event.
At the gathering, Provost Margaret Callahan, PhD, gave opening remarks. The group then heard from Schuck, who had just returned from taking a group of students to the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, where Native people are leading a movement for water rights and environmental justice. Schuck discussed the signage designs created by artist Buffalo Gouge, who could not travel from his home in Oklahoma for the event. He explained that Gouge, who is of Creek and Cherokee descent, used historic photos of Native Americans as the basis for his colorful illustrations. Next, SES alum Cosette Ellis introduced the four panelists and invited them to share their views on the significance of Land Acknowledgement Statements.
Panelists at the October event included (from left to right) Al Eastman, Jasmine Gurneau, Ella Doyle, and Brandon Folson.
The first panelist to speak was Brandon Folson, a Loyola student and an enrolled member of the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Counsel Fire) from the Ihanktonwan Nakota Oyate, federally recognized as the Yankton Sioux Tribe, and the Tetonwan, Oglala Lakota Tiospaye, federally recognized as the Oglala Sioux Tribe, of South Dakota.
Folson is a non-traditional undergraduate majoring in economics, philosophy, and Arab Languages. He also does independent research on Indigenous economics with the Cura Scholar research program. After completing his undergraduate degree, Folson plans to acquire a dual JD and PhD specializing in Indigenous law and economics.
At the event, he called attention to the part of the Land Acknowledgement Statement that refers to “the tragic legacy of colonization, genocide, and oppression that still impacts Native American lives today.”
“This is real. We are suffering today,” Folson said. “You must understand that we are living the words that you have written, so as I read them, it brings tears to my eyes.”
He described the Land Acknowledgement as a statement as a sign of goodwill, going on to reference the writings of Aristotle, who said that goodwill alone does not imply friendship.
“So with this Land Acknowledgment Statement, I ask, do you intend to give goodwill to us and take no action, not go through any trouble,” he asked. “Or are you proclaiming friendship to us, ensuring that you will take action to ensure that American Indians have access to Loyola Chicago through funded mandates?”
The next speaker, Ella Doyle, also called attention to the need to follow the adoption of the Land Acknowledgement Statement with action. Doyle is a 2023 Loyola alum with degrees in political science and criminal justice and is a dual citizen of the Cherokee Nation. During her undergraduate career, she served on the Loyola Land Acknowledgement Statement Committee and wrote the Resolution to Recognize Indigenous People’s Day, which the student government passed.
“The value of the Land Acknowledgment Statement, aside from its historical value, depends on how it is used,” said Doyle. “Today marks a definite increase in the value of the statement because it led to direct action through Loyola to support a member of the Indigenous Community both financially and artistically.”
She called on the university to see the adoption of the Land Acknowledgement Statement not as an endpoint but as the beginning of an ongoing effort to create a more supportive institution for Indigenous people.
Jasmine Gurneau offered her insights next. Gurneau is the director of Native American and Indigenous Affairs at Northwestern University. She spoke about her experience as a person of Onida and Menominee ancestry growing up in Chicago. She said she heard people talk about “urban Indians” in ways that implied living in the city meant being disconnected from Native culture.
Gurneau said she gained a new perspective early in her career while working on a community-based research project exploring how Native people relate to the natural world. She took families to visit Chicago-area forest preserves and tapped maple trees outside the building where she worked.
“I began to see that this is our native land. This land is also Indigenous land. And even though there has been this intentional erasure and invisibility, we’re still here,” she said. “And what the Land Acknowledgment Statement helps to do is disrupt and refuse that erasure and invisibility of the fact that these are indigenous lands. These lands are more than a resource or a location. We have a connection to this place.”
Al Eastman was the last panelist to speak. Eastman is from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota). He is an environmental activist and works as a treatment plant operator at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD). Eastman was instrumental in getting the Land Acknowledgment Statement ratified at the MWRD, and he advised the committee that developed Loyola’s statement. He reflected on the value of Land Acknowledgement Statements and the need for more than words.
“It seems like this is always a first step that people are thinking about,” he said. “It gives visibility to Indigenous people, and it recognizes the atrocities and genocides of the manifest destiny that still affects us to this very day. It’s very easy for land acknowledgments to become just another form of optical allyship. If they aren’t combined with actions and next steps, they become just a box of empty words. It can also become an excuse for institutions to move on with their lives without contributing anything to Native communities.”
Eastman discussed things that individuals and institutions can do to support Indigenous communities. He suggested action steps, including:
- Donating time and money to Indigenous organizations,
- Supporting Native-owned businesses,
- Supporting Native-organized grassroots campaigns,
- Getting rid of offensive and racist mascots and place names,
- Honoring treaties that guarantee Native peoples’ hunting and fishing rights and
- Paying a Native American land tax to a local tribe that has established a system to collect reparations.
Following the panel discussion and questions from the audience, event participants enjoyed Indigenous foods from Native American-owned catering company Foxway Catering. Owner and executive chef Angel Fox-Starr told the group about the dishes she had selected, which included frybread, wild rice, and a blueberry pudding. Members of the group then went outside to view the two newly installed Land Acknowledgement Statements signs on the Lake Shore Campus, and Al Eastman performed a smudging ceremony with sage to bless the signs.
Read the Loyola’s Land Acknowledgement Statement below.
Land Acknowledgement Statement
The Loyola University Chicago community acknowledges its location on the ancestral homelands of the Council of the Three Fires (the Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi tribes) and a place of trade with other tribes, including the Ho-Chunk, Miami, Menominee, Sauk, and Meskwaki. We recognize that descendants of these and other North American tribes continue to live and work on this land with us. We recognize the tragic legacy of colonization, genocide, and oppression that still impacts Native American lives today. As a Jesuit university, we affirm our commitment to issues of social responsibility and justice. We further recognize our responsibility to understand, teach, and respect the past and present realities of local Native Americans and their continued connection to this land.
Loyola Honors Indigenous Peoples’ Day
On October 11, Loyola University Chicago and its School of Environmental Sustainability hosted an event to honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day and unveil new signage displaying the university’s Land Acknowledgement Statement. Nearly 90 people gathered to hear from a panel of local Indigenous leaders and view the signs, which feature illustrations by Native American artist Buffalo Gouge.
The unveiling was the culmination of a process that started five years earlier when a group of faculty, students, and staff convened to discuss what Loyola can do to welcome and support Indigenous people—a population that remains underrepresented in higher education. Michael Schuck, PhD, a professor in the Theology Department and the School of Environmental Sustainability (SES), led these efforts. The group consulted with local Indigenous leaders, historians, students of Indigenous ancestry, and others, and together, they crafted the Land Acknowledgement Statement and a set of recommended actions. The university ratified the Land Acknowledgement Statement in 2020. This year, every school across the university contributed funds to commission artwork for the Land Acknowledgement Statement signs, produce the signs, and host the October event.
At the gathering, Provost Margaret Callahan, PhD, gave opening remarks. The group then heard from Schuck, who had just returned from taking a group of students to the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, where Native people are leading a movement for water rights and environmental justice. Schuck discussed the signage designs created by artist Buffalo Gouge, who could not travel from his home in Oklahoma for the event. He explained that Gouge, who is of Creek and Cherokee descent, used historic photos of Native Americans as the basis for his colorful illustrations. Next, SES alum Cosette Ellis introduced the four panelists and invited them to share their views on the significance of Land Acknowledgement Statements.
The first panelist to speak was Brandon Folson, a Loyola student and an enrolled member of the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Counsel Fire) from the Ihanktonwan Nakota Oyate, federally recognized as the Yankton Sioux Tribe, and the Tetonwan, Oglala Lakota Tiospaye, federally recognized as the Oglala Sioux Tribe, of South Dakota.
Folson is a non-traditional undergraduate majoring in economics, philosophy, and Arab Languages. He also does independent research on Indigenous economics with the Cura Scholar research program. After completing his undergraduate degree, Folson plans to acquire a dual JD and PhD specializing in Indigenous law and economics.
At the event, he called attention to the part of the Land Acknowledgement Statement that refers to “the tragic legacy of colonization, genocide, and oppression that still impacts Native American lives today.”
“This is real. We are suffering today,” Folson said. “You must understand that we are living the words that you have written, so as I read them, it brings tears to my eyes.”
He described the Land Acknowledgement as a statement as a sign of goodwill, going on to reference the writings of Aristotle, who said that goodwill alone does not imply friendship.
“So with this Land Acknowledgment Statement, I ask, do you intend to give goodwill to us and take no action, not go through any trouble,” he asked. “Or are you proclaiming friendship to us, ensuring that you will take action to ensure that American Indians have access to Loyola Chicago through funded mandates?”
The next speaker, Ella Doyle, also called attention to the need to follow the adoption of the Land Acknowledgement Statement with action. Doyle is a 2023 Loyola alum with degrees in political science and criminal justice and is a dual citizen of the Cherokee Nation. During her undergraduate career, she served on the Loyola Land Acknowledgement Statement Committee and wrote the Resolution to Recognize Indigenous People’s Day, which the student government passed.
“The value of the Land Acknowledgment Statement, aside from its historical value, depends on how it is used,” said Doyle. “Today marks a definite increase in the value of the statement because it led to direct action through Loyola to support a member of the Indigenous Community both financially and artistically.”
She called on the university to see the adoption of the Land Acknowledgement Statement not as an endpoint but as the beginning of an ongoing effort to create a more supportive institution for Indigenous people.
Jasmine Gurneau offered her insights next. Gurneau is the director of Native American and Indigenous Affairs at Northwestern University. She spoke about her experience as a person of Onida and Menominee ancestry growing up in Chicago. She said she heard people talk about “urban Indians” in ways that implied living in the city meant being disconnected from Native culture.
Gurneau said she gained a new perspective early in her career while working on a community-based research project exploring how Native people relate to the natural world. She took families to visit Chicago-area forest preserves and tapped maple trees outside the building where she worked.
“I began to see that this is our native land. This land is also Indigenous land. And even though there has been this intentional erasure and invisibility, we’re still here,” she said. “And what the Land Acknowledgment Statement helps to do is disrupt and refuse that erasure and invisibility of the fact that these are indigenous lands. These lands are more than a resource or a location. We have a connection to this place.”
Al Eastman was the last panelist to speak. Eastman is from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota). He is an environmental activist and works as a treatment plant operator at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD). Eastman was instrumental in getting the Land Acknowledgment Statement ratified at the MWRD, and he advised the committee that developed Loyola’s statement. He reflected on the value of Land Acknowledgement Statements and the need for more than words.
“It seems like this is always a first step that people are thinking about,” he said. “It gives visibility to Indigenous people, and it recognizes the atrocities and genocides of the manifest destiny that still affects us to this very day. It’s very easy for land acknowledgments to become just another form of optical allyship. If they aren’t combined with actions and next steps, they become just a box of empty words. It can also become an excuse for institutions to move on with their lives without contributing anything to Native communities.”
Eastman discussed things that individuals and institutions can do to support Indigenous communities. He suggested action steps, including:
- Donating time and money to Indigenous organizations,
- Supporting Native-owned businesses,
- Supporting Native-organized grassroots campaigns,
- Getting rid of offensive and racist mascots and place names,
- Honoring treaties that guarantee Native peoples’ hunting and fishing rights and
- Paying a Native American land tax to a local tribe that has established a system to collect reparations.
Following the panel discussion and questions from the audience, event participants enjoyed Indigenous foods from Native American-owned catering company Foxway Catering. Owner and executive chef Angel Fox-Starr told the group about the dishes she had selected, which included frybread, wild rice, and a blueberry pudding. Members of the group then went outside to view the two newly installed Land Acknowledgement Statements signs on the Lake Shore Campus, and Al Eastman performed a smudging ceremony with sage to bless the signs.
Read the Loyola’s Land Acknowledgement Statement below.
Land Acknowledgement Statement
The Loyola University Chicago community acknowledges its location on the ancestral homelands of the Council of the Three Fires (the Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi tribes) and a place of trade with other tribes, including the Ho-Chunk, Miami, Menominee, Sauk, and Meskwaki. We recognize that descendants of these and other North American tribes continue to live and work on this land with us. We recognize the tragic legacy of colonization, genocide, and oppression that still impacts Native American lives today. As a Jesuit university, we affirm our commitment to issues of social responsibility and justice. We further recognize our responsibility to understand, teach, and respect the past and present realities of local Native Americans and their continued connection to this land.